


Suptober Day 16: Switch It Up

by tiamatv



Series: South Side Swing [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (Except Are They Really?), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Chicago Mafia, Dean Winchester is Bad at Self-Care, Foot Massage, Fuckbuddies, M/M, Russian Mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:48:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27071509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiamatv/pseuds/tiamatv
Summary: Dean's never been good at dealing with crap when something happens to one of his people. He knows this is how it is, this is the life, and sometimes it's pretty shitty. But that doesn't make it better, with the stink of the hospital in his nose and the short December days in Chicago closing hard and frigid around him.So if a certain Bratva thinks he's up to fuck right now, he's got another thing coming.(A timestamp for South Side Swing)
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: South Side Swing [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734220
Comments: 68
Kudos: 202





	Suptober Day 16: Switch It Up

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it looks like the Mafia boyos wanted to come back for a bit! This is set in December, so sometime between East Englewood (September) and Magnificent Mile (February).

The fact is, they don’t talk much in bed.

The fact is, they don’t really _need_ to. Haven’t needed to. It’s been, what, eight months? It’s December, now, and it’s pretty nearly just as damned good as it was the first time.

Better, in some ways.

Sure, Cas tells Dean what he wants—and Dean’s never going to not enjoy that; there’s just _something_ about that low rasp in his ear, telling him so damned politely “I would like you to ride my cock,” or “please fuck my mouth.” Sure, Dean blows Cas’s mind with a little dirty talk now and again, and it’s so much fun watching his pupils obliterate the beautiful blue of his eyes, his little indrawn gasp when Dean says something that Cas likes. Dean might’ve even started to think up things to say to him even when they’re _not_ together.

Jesus Christ, no, Dean doesn’t write them down or anything! But it's like condoms and lube: one of those things where a little forethought might make the whole thing better, ‘cause scrambling for it at the moment doesn’t always go right. The ‘what the everlasting hell are you babbling about, Winchester?’ look that Cas shot him when Dean said something about licking his armpit almost sent Dean toppling off the bed laughing.

(Cas shoots him those looks in meetings between their families _all the time_. Dean’s started being extra sassy to him in the middle of them just for that. Even if it _does_ get Bobby gnawing at his head afterwards. It’s fine, Cas knows what he means anyway.)

“You are very odd, Dean,” Cas sighs. “And this is coming from _me_.”

Dean snorts and throws a pillow at him. Cas doesn’t swat it away, and it hits him in the chest and falls into his naked lap. He looks down at it, frowning.

“And your aim is very poor,” he adds—and then he takes the pillow between his hands and starts _plumping_ it. Dean gapes. “But the pillow isn’t aerodynamic, so I guess that’s fine.”

Dean still can’t always tell when he’s joking—and sometimes, the damned Bratva _isn’t_ —but Cas can’t exactly blame him for Dean launching himself across the bed to tickle the sass out of him.

(Sides and ribs aren’t ticklish— _boring_ —but his armpits are; no wonder he wasn’t into the licking idea. The very top of his butt, though, that’s an unexpected surprise. Dean’s not sure about the underside of his chin or his neck yet, because the moment Dean tries to get his hands up _there_ he finds himself laid out on his belly, both his arms held behind his back with a grip on both his wrists, and a hand on the back of his head shoving him into the mattress. Okay, he probably deserved that.)

It’s… fun, sometimes. Dean knew sex could be—he’s tripped over the edge of his pants, or on a guy’s shoes; gotten snapped in the face with a bra cup, laughed his way through his tongue on a girl’s pussy because she wanted to 69 but their heights just didn’t line up. ‘Cause it’s sometimes all so fucking absurd.

This isn’t the same thing, though. ‘Cause for all that they don’t talk in bed—do they? Dean doesn’t think so, not really—he’s kind of gotten to _know_ the guy. It’s… unusual, but what about this isn’t, for Dean? And the wait times in between, those dry spells, aren’t that unpleasant, even if Brooklyn does seem kind of far away sometimes. Cas stays over the whole night now and again, and they’ve had a few drinks. A few showers together— _mm._ Even dinner out a few times—no mandatory fucking chaperone anymore, but Sam seems to legitimately _enjoy_ Cas’s company.

(Because Sam is equally weird.)

“So… you don’t hate him anymore?” Sam asks, hopefully, that day when Dean asks his little brother if he wants to join them at the Music Box theater for a drink and a showing of A New Hope, all at the same time, ‘cause the Music Box is civilized like that. Cas needs to at least see _one_ fucking landmark that doesn’t come out of a tourist brochure, dammit.

“Never did, don’t know where everyone gets that bullshit,” Dean answers, and it’s completely fucking honest, but Sam rolls his eyes and glares at him like he thinks Dean’s making shit up again. Well, it’s none of the Samwich’s business, and it seems like Bobby trusts him and Cas not to stab each other now even if he doesn’t trust Dean to keep his mouth shut during negotiations.

The truth is, Dean’s gotten used to this. He’s gotten to enjoy it. Cas still breaks into Dean’s house, but Dean’s also been known to charm his way into Cas’s hotel room and wait for him in there—even if it _did_ get him a gun pointed at his face the first time he did it.

(Fair’s fair. He pointed one at Cas the first time, too. Dean wasn’t offended. Besides, Cas was so _pissed_ about hotel security—and so completely unable to do anything about it, ‘cause it wasn’t like he wanted to have Dean arrested or flagged on camera or anything—that it was worth it just for the laughs.)

Dean doesn’t really claim to know what this is, and every time he even _considers_ wanting to ask—not actually asking, that’s a whole different can of Cheez-Its—his brain gets sucked out through his dick.

And Dean has absolutely no problems with this, normally, ‘cause he’s not a fucking moron. Besides, having a dark-haired, beautiful Bratva on his knees in front of him is bound to blow out the synapses out of _anyone_. (Cas really likes sucking cock. Jesus fucking Christ, the man’s a gift.)

But today, when he walks through his front door and finds Cas on his couch, reading lamp the only source of light in the room in quite possibly the most damned dramatic silhouette imaginable, Dean can honestly say he’s just… he’s not into it. He’s not, not tonight, and he doesn’t know what to do with that.

Dean’s keys are still jingling in his hand; he’s frozen up to his eyeballs even though he’s sweating underneath his winter layers, and his hair is matted and sticky from being under the watch cap that he threw down on the kitchen table.

He’s exhausted. He’s exhausted and he’s heartsick, and for the first time in his life, he looks down at Cas’s thoughtful, intense face, lit by quiet lamplight, and he’s not thinking of how those full lips look stretched out and straining around his cock, or the way Cas’s thick dark eyelashes flutter when Dean fucks into him.

It's not that Cas doesn’t look good. He does: even though Dean’s pretty sure it’s cold in his house, since he turned the thermostat down before he left, he’s already shucked off his suit jacket, his weird tie; the first few buttons of his shirt are undone, leaving a lean V of skin lit by the soft light. The lamplight means that those dramatic features are just as secretly fucking great as they were in the Jeffrey Pub bar lighting the first time they met—nothing but serious lips and serious eyes, cheekbones like a wing. Dean’s cock gives a half-hearted throb in his pants at the memory, but… he’s just not there.

“Hey,” Dean says, without surprise, and without any pleasure. Shit. He probably should’ve just texted Cas and told him not to come over—he knew that Gabriel was gonna be in town tomorrow for negotiations, probably with his Parakh at his elbow, and two of his people even requested visitation for Asa.

Bobby granted it. Gabriel and his people aren’t Outfit, it’s true. They’re not family. But they get it—they would. And, it turns out, some of the Bratva knew Asa Fox even before the negotiations started early this year; not all that surprising, since Asa wasn’t one of theirs, but he was a fixer in New York before he moved to the Midwest. Asa roamed around like that. Busy guy.

This is the life, shit happens, and Dean’s put roses on more coffins than he likes to think of. But yeah, he just wasn’t thinking about Cas being in town, not this time. Asa might not be dead, but _fuck_ , he looked tiny in that hospital bed, tube down his throat, so much of him wrapped up in casts and splints and whatever that he was more bandage than man.

Dean hates hospitals. He always hates hospitals.

Just ‘cause it’s gotten easier doesn’t make it _easy._

“I’m sorry about your soldato,” Cas says, in that quiet, gentle way he has sometimes. He doesn’t stand up from where he’s tucked himself into the far corner of the couch. It’s the first thing he says, ‘cause Cas really has no fucking idea how to lead into conversation most of the time.

“Yeah,” Dean says, ‘cause that’s all there is to be said about it. He doesn’t correct him. Asa isn’t a soldato, he’s a consigliere, but Cas is still saying that Asa is one of _Dean’s_ , and that’s true. They aren’t close, but he’s _theirs_. Just ‘cause Dean has a bunch of people under him doesn’t mean that he thinks he can afford to lose any, and not like this.

Not a shootout, not an ambush. Not the North Gang, not the Mambo Kings. Just a fuckin’ _car crash_ on I-55. It’s so pointless.

Dean doesn’t sit down, because he’s not sure he’s going to want to stand up again if he does, but he does sigh.

Dean’s just… he can’t believe he’s saying this, but he’s just not in the fucking mood. Or the mood to fuck. Or… whatever. But Cas is _here_ , and Dean knows just what he’s here for, it’s what he’s always here for, so…

Dean pulls off his heavy winter overjacket, dropping it in a pile of December down on the floor, and starts on the buttons of his flannel under it, watching his fingers undo them. What the hell. Why not. “You want maybe just a blowjob?” he asks.

Dean tries to call up the right enthusiasm for that. It really deserves a proper smile.

Of course Cas loves getting his cock sucked—who doesn’t? Dean does not do it as often as he should, and he really _should,_ ‘cause he normally enjoys the fuck out of it, too. Cas is just the right size: big enough that it’s a stretch and a real effort, not so big that Dean thinks he’s gonna end up with TMJ after. He can’t always swallow him down, but Cas doesn’t mind that any more than Dean does, and there’s _nothing_ like feeling him drip on the back of his tongue ‘cause Cas just gets that wet.

Dean could sit him down on the couch here, climb between his legs and peel him out of black pants that Dean can already tell are too thin for the weather outside. He could play with his foreskin until Cas grabs for his shoulder, then get him sitting so still and groaning into the back of his hand and not quite coming _yet_ , but so close that even as polite as he always is, his hips are moving in tiny, shivering little jerks.

Yeah, maybe. That’s pretty nice. Dean’s tired and feeling kind of empty, and maybe having something warm and alive and thick in his mouth will do him good. Why not, right? Sure.

“What?” Cas answers, sharply. “No.”

Any sort of warm feelings that Dean might have had trying to percolate snap cold. Dean’s definitely not getting it up, and he already knows there’s gonna be no-one up his ass tonight. Just ‘cause he’s always said ‘yes’ to everything that Cas has wanted to do—no hardship, that, ‘cause for one thing, Cas ain’t into pain or anything Dean’s ever had a hard no over—doesn’t mean he always _will_.

“Well, that or nothin’, angel,” Dean answers, and his voice is hard.

“That’s not… sit _down_ , Dean,” Cas tell him, and there’s a thrum of something dark and displeased at the back of Cas’s voice that raises Dean’s hackles. He doesn’t call Dean on calling him ‘angel,’ even though Dean knows that Castiel Novak really does _not_ like that.

It’s on the tip of his tongue to snap back, because he doesn’t care how badass Cas’s reputation is, he’s in _Dean’s_ city here—he’s in _Dean’s_ house, looking for a booty call, and if a BJ’s not enough for him he can fuck himself up his own polite Russian ass.

But Dean’s not really looking for a fight, either. And he’s _tired_. He didn’t come home wanting to throw a punch, much less fuck. He wanted to turn on the TV and have a finger of something really strong. And then he wanted to crawl himself to bed and _not_ wake up to a call from Bobby calling him back to the hospital to say goodbye to one of theirs.

But Cas is looking up at him quiet, a little sad. Not angry. He hasn’t risen from where he’s sitting, looking all casual in his button down and slacks, because only Castiel Novak looks dressed _down,_ rather than up, in a button down and slacks. Dean might have had no idea who he was when he picked up a pretty, awkward little blue-eyed dude at a bar, watching his eyes go wide and startled and disbelieving when Dean invited him back, but he knows now.

Cas is so familiar, by now, and his hands are folded loose in his lap, eyes quiet and crystal. Right now, he doesn’t look like someone who’s basically sitting in Dean’s seat in the New York Russian Mob (and there are times he really fucking _does_ ). It’s Dean’s shy accountant who’s studying him, not some Brighton Beach badass with a rep to make ghosts shiver.

It's the look of confusion that crosses his face and then flickers off tightly that makes Dean sit down heavily on the other end of the sofa—not the fact that it probably doesn’t pay to piss off Avoritet Gabriel Novak’s Parakh and little brother.

Cas never really _is_ that, to Dean. Not here, anyway.

Cas rummages in something just off his right foot, tucked away beside the edge of the sofa and outside of the pool of light cast by Dean’s standing reading lamp. It glitters when he pulls it into the light—amber and crystal, swishing softly.

“I brought you this,” Cas tells him, and shows him the bottle with both hands. It’s thick and square; the label’s the color of blood, and in the low light, all Dean can read is ‘Hillrock’ in white lettering. A small red ribbon is tied around the neck of it. “It’s from a New York distillery—north of the city. Do you want some now?”

At least he doesn’t say ‘You’re acting like you need it.’

Dean’s brain still isn’t moving as quickly as it should, though, still crawling and cold, which is why he asks, “Wait, did you sneak that on an airplane?”

Cas snorts, softly. The couch moves as he shrugs, crossing his legs at the ankle. “Why do you always assume I did something illegally?”

‘Cause Cas just broke into his house—again _?_ Dean sometimes thinks of giving him a key _just_ to spoil the smug Bratva’s damned fun, and so he can stop thinking about how exactly Cas keeps getting past his goddamned security systems. Maybe he just needs to get a dog. He frowns. “Well, did you?”

“Yes,” Cas answers, primly.

The airless little laugh bursts out of Dean before he realizes that it’s going to escape. Dean thinks it might be the first time he’s smiled since he got the news of the accident. He looks at the bottle in Cas’s hand again, and breathes out the cold outside and the stink of antiseptic.

Okay, so maybe Cas thinks he needs to get liquored up first. He’s probably not _wrong_.

He doesn’t move, though. “Should I get the glasses or are you gonna prove you’re even more of a creeper than I think you are?”

Castiel huffs, but he pushes the bottle towards Dean and stands, a slow, graceful rise out of Dean’s man-eating sofa with one hand on the armrest. The bottle has heft to it, and corners—it looks and feels expensive. It _smells_ expensive, rich and dark and fruity, by the time they get the cork open together, pouring out just a finger each. Even from the dark, rich smell that comes up as he pours, the weight of the bottle, Dean’s sort of glad that Cas found the good glass tumblers rather than just pulling out a short water glass (shut up, everyone does it sometimes).

They both sip in silence—first, because there’s not really much to say, but then the flavor of it rolls across his tongue.

Dean’s eyebrows jump in appreciation, and he stares down into the dark, lustrous amber with appreciation. He likes whiskey—he likes good whiskey better—and he wouldn’t claim to understand ‘nose’ and ‘body’ and ‘finish’ and shit like that, but he knows _really good_ when it slips over his throat with barely a burn. “Oh, damn,” he murmurs, and takes another drink.

It's delicious. Hell, it’s _balanced_. Bitter, sure, but in just the right way to offset a tiny hint of raspberry-sweet; a little dark, like toffee, and a little spicy, when he holds it in his mouth and lets it sit before swallowing it. There’s a curl of smokiness, right at the end before he swallows. Nothing sharp, it’s all blending together.

“It’s solera bourbon,” Cas tells him, curling the glass under his nose in a slow swirl. “Hillrock was the first to do it with whiskey, I’m told. I believe the technique started with sherry? They have a stack of casks, and they bottle from the bottom cask—and every time a little is emptied, they top it off with some from the cask above it, and so on, until they put fresh liquor into the top cask. Each cask is a different material—sherry casks, bourbon casks.” He sips.

Dean studies him. “Didn’t know you liked whiskey,” he says. They haven’t gone out together much, but he’s never seen Cas order it.

“It’s not my drink of choice. I still prefer vodka,” Castiel confesses. “But this came highly recommended, and so.” He shrugs. “I like the way it smells like maple.”

And he brought it for Dean. Just… ‘cause?

Dean tucks his feet under himself, and turns his back more comfortably into the sofa. Some of the stiffness has left it, and he stretches—a little. “Ever had bourbon maple syrup?” he asks. “You know, the kind that they age in old bourbon barrels? I’ll get you some. Well, in April or May, I guess.”

“April?” Cas asks, curious.

Dean shrugs, and drinks again so he doesn’t have to answer.

Dean is _not_ gonna tell Cas that the reason he knows about that shit is that they sell it at the farmer’s market, it is not his fault that Sam drags him out to the Green City market up in Lincoln Park a couple of times a year, and they’re always handing out samples. It’s the only damned place Dean can get his favorite hot sauce, anyway.

They finish their tumblers without talking, and Dean’s thinking, maybe like he really _would_ like to give Cas that blowjob now, his throat and face warmer with the bourbon. He’s not turned on, still not really in the mood for sex, but drinking here quietly with someone who doesn’t feel like he’s got to fill up the house with noise? He feels… thawed-out, almost. It’s nice.

He finishes before Cas does, and just watches him drink—the careful curve of his shoulders, the fact that he remembered to take off his shoes. He’s still wearing his socks. The soft yellow half-light of the reading lamp is really fucking flattering, but there’s really nothing about Cas that needs any flattery.

But when Cas lowers his empty glass down to the side table, he speaks up before Dean has a chance to.

“Give me your feet, please,” Cas says, gesturing with a hand.

Dean blinks across the space between them. “What?”

Cas doesn’t quite roll his eyes, but he pats the front of his thighs. “Give me your feet,” he repeats, more slowly, like he thinks Dean’s slow. Then, an afterthought, again, “Please.”

Uh, okay, weird—Cas has never in the time they’ve been fucking each other stupid shown any sign of a foot fetish—but Dean gingerly pokes one foot in his direction anyway.

This time, Cas really _does_ roll his eyes. He reaches out a hand and grabs Dean by the ankle. Dean squawks as Cas hauls Dean’s foot into his lap with enough force that Dean’s whole body swings around and he almost gives himself the splits before he wiggles and rearranges.

“Cas!” he complains. “What the—”

Castiel Novak, Parak of the Brighton Beach Bratva, tucks both his palms on either side of Dean’s foot. Gently, he pulls the right side of Dean’s foot towards himself and presses the left side back in a twisting stretch. His hands wrap, big and callused, from Dean’s ankle to his toes, tugging in a long, slow back and forth manipulation. He goes the other way, a push-pull, and Dean feels his spine go warmer than the bourbon can account for as he melts into the armrest behind him.

“Oh _hh_ ,” he grunts, as Cas’s thumbs make their way down into the arch of his foot, pressing firm and warm and _strong_ into a ball of tension that Dean had no idea was even there.

Shit, Dean doesn’t know when the last time was that he had a foot massage, but after a couple more motions—and he _moans_ at the deep roll into his instep—there’s no fucking doubt that that’s what Cas is doing. And he _really_ knows just what he’s doing. Dean has the fleeting thought, as Cas is gently bending and stretching each of his toes up and down, that there’s a small possibility Cas knows just how to do this because he knows how to inflict pain, but _Jesus_ it feels so good he doesn’t even care.

When Cas gestures at his other leg, slumped limp off the side of the sofa with Dean’s crotch on full spread-leg display, Dean eagerly hauls his other foot up to get the same treatment.

Cas—because he’s a fucking tease—presses both his hands to Dean’s kneecaps instead, and Dean can’t feel as much of the press through his lined winter jeans, but the smooth slide down his shins before Cas’s hands curve over the tops of both of his feet feels pretty good anyway. Dean closes his eyes and lets his head fall against the side of the armrest. Cas chuckles when he wiggles his toes, looking for some more attention.

Cas is just running his fingers back and forth lightly along each of the bones on the tops of Dean’s foot, the curve of his ankle, when he speaks up again.

“I heard it was a drunk driver,” he says, his hands a slow, even stroke. He cups one heel, and then the other, folding his fingers through Dean’s toes like they’re holding hands.

“I heard that, too,” Dean agrees. He doesn’t open his eyes.

More than heard. He knows the guy’s name, his address. He knows where his kids go to school, where the guy’s wife works. He knows that he was on his way home from a quick fuck up in Boystown with a young guy named Shawn.

Dean’s never been one to shame anyone for being bi. Or gay, or in the closet, or _whatever._ Glass houses, big fucking stones. But if a guy’s gotta be drunk off his ass to fuck a barely legal kid—whose _rent_ he pays out of an account his wife doesn’t know about—and then he goes driving back to the ‘burbs to his wife, down the Stevenson, still plastered? He really fucking oughtta have been putting that cash towards therapy or a divorce lawyer.

No matter what happens to Asa, Sam’s gonna see him crucified. Dean knows this. They all know this. Sam may not be a criminal lawyer—well, he _is_ a criminal lawyer, just not… well, anyway—but he takes substance abuse cases really, _really_ fucking personally.

It’s not enough.

“Shall I kill him?” Cas asks, casually. His pointer finger rings rosies around Dean’s inner ankle.

Dean doesn’t know if he actually hears the ‘for you’ in that, or if it’s just his imagination. He’s not even sure if the chill that goes down his back is fear or recognition or ‘oh fuck, that’s hot.’

He cracks open one eye, but then Cas presses a thumb into his Achilles tendon, Dean’s whole foot bowing forward in a stretch he didn’t even know he needed, and Dean almost arches along with it. By the time Cas is back to rubbing his thumb and forefinger in slow, pinching stroking motions down the sides of the tendon, all the way from calf towards heel, Dean’s almost forgotten Cas said that.

“You bein’ a garden variety sociopath, or are you asking for real?” Dean asks, lazily reaching out a hand to brush some of Cas’s eternally messed-up hair with his fingertips, and then realizes he wouldn’t be able to reach without bending forward and sitting up. Dammit. He drops his hand. “Because I might just take you up on it, and I don’t know which of us would be in more trouble.”

Cas chuckles, soft and dark. “Likely you. I wouldn’t be caught.” He blinks innocent blue eyes at Dean and to Dean’s startled delight, his Russian accent is suddenly soft and thick and burring, his voice even _deeper_ with the purr of sneering consonants. “Do you have that many sociopaths in your garden, Winchester?”

Dean thumps him on the thigh with a heel. Which is really fucking ineffective, but he also really doesn’t want to move. “You’re such an _asshole_ ,” he grumbles. “You can’t do that and then complain ‘bout me saying you’re Russian.”

“I _am_ Russian,” Castiel notes, dryly, back to his crisp, unaccented English. “I am just not the kind of Russian where you can conveniently write off my strangeness with foreignness, because I’m not _foreign._ Just strange.”

“Yeah, but I kind of like you this way, gotta say,” Dean mutters, as Cas’s fingers move away from the back of his foot and he starts knuckling his way across the ball of it with deep, rhythmic digs. Oh, damn. Dean lets his head fall back against the couch back, and sighs. He almost tenses up because it feels so _good._ “Jesu—”

Cas’s hands stop. “ _Dean_ ,” he growls.

“What, you want me to say ‘Jeepers?’” Dean snorts. “’Jinkies?’”

“Those would be absurd. But at least they wouldn’t be blasphemous.”

But when Dean lifts his head to glare, Cas is smiling over at him with that little tilted smile he wears when he thinks he’s being clever. And he doesn’t stop with the foot massage, the slow rub of his hands spreading Dean thin underneath him.

By some stretch of time later, Dean’s back is so loose they’re going to have to pour him off the sofa. He knows he had some kind of a plan, but he doesn’t remember what it is anymore. He’s not even sure he can get his eyes open again by the time Cas starts gently squeezing his calves, and by the time the deep presses have turned into gentle, almost tickling little ringing strokes along his soles, he’s stopped trying.

Cas flicks Dean’s big toe gently—Dean barely feels himself twitch—and chuckles. “You have very nice feet,” he murmurs. “ _Very_ responsive.”

“If you start sucking on my toes, I swear to God, Cas,” he slurs, his head tipped all the way back. “I’m gonna shoot you with your own gun.”

Cas hmphs, but even without opening his eyes, Dean knows that little smile that’s winking at the corners of his full mouth. He doesn’t say anything sassy back—or at least, not that Dean hears before he topples off the cliff into dreamland.

Cas is gone when he wakes up.

It’s not the first time Dean’s fallen asleep on the couch—won’t be the last. But it’s the first time he wakes up curled on his side not just with his head on the crook of his elbow, but a pile of blankets pulled over his shoulders and a pillow tucked behind his knees to keep them a little bent, like someone understands he’s gotta sleep like that or else they’re stiff in the morning.

Nothing’s poking him in the hip, though, and _that’s_ not good. But when Dean jerks himself upright and sits up and looks around, alarmed, his Colt is on the coffee table, the safety on. The bottle of bourbon, two glasses emptier, is capped on the table next to it. The tumblers are gone, and in the early morning light, the liquor looks deep and rich, the label that Dean couldn’t make out in the half-light last night reading “1806, Hillrock Estate Distillery, Handcrafted Estate Solera Aged Bourbon Whiskey, Hudson Valley, New York.”

A little note scribbled on what looks like the back of a business card—when he turns it over, it _is_ a business card, and he grins: Castiel Novak, Certified Public Accountant, huh?—says “Hope you slept well. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

Huh.

Dean rubs his eyes and unwraps himself the rest of the way from the burrito of warm blankets, grimacing a little as his feet hit the floor and his happy pampered toes immediately try to curl away from it—he didn’t turn on the heat, since he’s a good Chicagolander. That means that he doesn’t heat the whole damned house in midwinter if just the bedroom will do, and he didn’t make it into his bedroom.

But a flash of color makes him look down at his feet.

That bright, silky bit of ribbon that was tied around the neck of the bottle? It’s tied around Dean’s goddamned _big toe._

Oh, that _sonofabitch._

Dean’s still laughing by the time he gets the phone call from Bobby telling him that Asa’s going to be okay.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Dean, it's December, and Cas brought you a Christmas present. Yes, Dean, you are also enough of an idiot that you probably never realized that.
> 
> Okay, okay, so why "Switch it Up?" Well, Dean and Cas are already switches, right, so how can they possibly switch it up any further?
> 
> Simple: hang out and _not have sex._
> 
> (I swear this made sense in my head, and I hope it makes sense in someone else's, too.)


End file.
